


The Bluebird

by Galgobaad56



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, Childhood Friends, Depression, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Pain train and i meant it, Rey (Star Wars) is a Mess, Rey Needs A Hug, Sad but beautiful., Sex, Sharing a Bed, Soulmates, Vaginal Sex, life is complicated and so is love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24520105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galgobaad56/pseuds/Galgobaad56
Summary: She said something to the other one, most likely his name, the brown-haired girl has now turned her body completely so she can see him, and the brief suspicion that had covered him seconds before has dissipated when his eyes meet the eyes of his ex-best friend.Of his first love.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Lando Calrissian & Rey & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Rey & Luke Skywalker, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had this plot made years ago but for another fandom... Hope you enjoy as much as i do.

**_First came darkness._ **

But she opened her eyes when she managed to stand up without any support.

Her head still throbbed from all that medication from the past few days, her fingers were trembling under the flannel shirt she wore, his scent was there, it still seemed to be impregnated in her, in her hair, in her hands, under her nails, breasts, in her mouth and between her legs.

This made him even more present in her subconscious and made her even more aware of his absence. The breeze was cold because of the rain that had just subsided in that part of the city.

From that height, the lights in the distance looked more like small beetles, the sounds of cars still traveling in the early evening were also there, they were the noise of their antennae.

A laugh leaped out of her mouth almost like a frog leaps from corner to corner, and for just a second she really imagined herself as a big, fat amphibian, picking up all those irritating, feverish lights with her nimble, long tongue.

How crazy.

What the fuck are you doing, Rey ?!

_If i look back i am lost ..._

Get out of there!

_If i look back i am lost ..._

_If i look back i am lost._

A painful, dry sob broke out in her chest and she pressed the spot with both hands, it seemed to bleed, even without any cut in that area; all of her.

Totally ignoring the rest of the common sense that a pint of vodka and more than fifteen pills threatened to steal from her, Rey looked down before feeling a strong wave of vertigo.

Her temples now seemed to be pounding with pain and everything was a strange mixture of euphoria and sadness, her skin seemed to boil with the freshly ingested alcohol.

Four floors below her feet was the cul-de-sac where the building’s janitor left the tenants’ bins, and although it didn’t look like it was a considerable height... Expensive residential area, old ladies walking their pedigree dogs in the afternoon and nannies walking there and here in their white uniforms at sunrise. Of course that shit would have a considerable height.

She had hated the neighborhood since the moment she stepped foot into the apartment, almost three years ago. Rey wouldn’t move to a bourgeois neighborhood like that and leave it at that.

She laughed internally. It wasn’t like she wasn’t a brazen bourgeois herself, was it? For sure. But she liked to think that she was different at times, nothing too drastic, her father in another situation would laugh and say that she was very similar to him when young, a true idealist; at least in this case, an aspiring true idealist.

The dizziness and the eagerness made her abandon that stupid thought for an instant, it wasn’t like she wasn’t always ready for a good self-deprecating session, anyway.

However, for some reason she was never able to understand, she took a step backwards and not forward, into the infinite and empty space towards the janitor’s garbage alley. With her right leg behind her, she had the impression that the wind was now pushing her to the edge, she could almost feel it in the few centimeters of skin uncovered at the top of her heel, fingers as cruel and thin as a spider’s, urging her to do so; encouraging, helping.

And she was wearing socks, what an irony, even in a situation like this she never abandoned them.

The hot tears continued to drift down her sleepy countenance when she heard the heavy footsteps approaching, a very beautiful and familiar female voice calling her with longing, it seemed desperate.

More steps were coming, now even heavier, also more hurried wherever they went. Rey did not answer them, nor did she turn to look at who was behind.

_If i look back i am lost ..._

Now she was smiling at nothing again.

The lights became more and more blurred and the more blurred the more beautiful, and the more beautiful, the more blinding even from afar, the more blinding, the closer.

A dry, broken laugh came out of her throat, already hurt from screaming. And the girl stretched out her small bony fist in the direction of the pretty lights in front of her, while her weak and completely doped body bent toward the precipice.

A hand went after her, almost immediately. The thin fabric threatened to tear, but another hand was placed on that task, and another, and then another, two pairs of hands held it up, she swayed for a moment in her own clothes, but whoever was pulling at the beginning had strength and soon the tiny body was being lifted in a bizarre manner by those two figures immersed in pitch, back onto the terrace.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall, it had been a while since she saw anything when she was hurriedly removed from her fantastic daydream, the rain came back with more force and washed the pots of withered plants that surrounded the place.

It was not this time that she was able to reach the lights beyond sight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gate creaked slightly when she pushed it away, and once again her memory was auspicious when she remembered to make the exact move when she came back in the afternoons from bike rides, years ago when she was just a toothy little girl, on a summer like that, with trees like those that surrounded houses like those, the same houses, the same trees of so many years ago.

The smell of food passed through the cramped room and slowly made its way to the last square meter of the corridor, mischievously and passionately sneaking through cracks and spaces beyond the kitchen.

  
And it was with this bait that Rey came out from under the mountain of blankets that buried her during the night, even in early summer. The air conditioning was always on in that house and she liked it that way, she was always more a creature of the cold than the heat.

  
The door to the dark and abnormally stuffy room she called bedroom was ajar, Rose should have taken a look to see if she was up early.

  
She dragged herself over to where her friend was banging dishes and pots, and as soon as she got there she also realized: singing very out of tune with one of Rod Stewart's songs. Rose’s mother was a true fan of the singer and from an early age she taught her child what according to her “was real music”. As expected, the wonderful aroma that had taken her out of the tomb was not the sausages or the eggs she wanted so much, but a strange mixture of shredded chicken and vegetables. From where she was, the girl could only discern a few cubes of red pepper; it didn't look bad at all, compared to the dietary crepe with pieces of tofu that she had been forced to have dinner the night before that was a treat for the gods.

  
In the second part of the song, the animated figure noticed the second presence in the kitchen and smiled sunny while using one hand to rip off the headphones, the other still stirred the frying pan on Rey's stove.

  
“Morning, gorgeous!”, Laughter marks framed the beautiful girl's face when she turned completely towards the newcomer.

  
“Hi.”, She sketched an imitation of a smile, something she had been practicing hard for just over nine months; it's not like she could lie to her best friend, but at least Rey could tell that she wasn't being rude when she saw a neighbor in the elevator - on the rare occasions when she had to go to work. She paid all her bills over the internet and anything very serious was always Rose who helped her solve it, the same one who now ignoring her plasticized smile, offered to put a good portion of food on their plate. They sat together at the table as they did most days.

  
Rose lived in the front apartment, they had moved at the same time to go to college since she had been a year ahead of school, as they had been neighbors all their lives, when both parents helped them with the move it was just the best day in the life of the two young women. They spent three years sharing an apartment right in the center of the city, but when things got better and Rey wanted to move in with her boyfriend, they tried to find an offer and so they didn't move away from each other, they lived far from their families and always had only one another in the big city; aside, of course, the fact that Rose would hardly be able to afford to rent the old place on her own. Even after so much research, Rey didn’t like the new neighborhood very much, she said that people there were very cold and unpleasant with each other, but luckily for them, even though the good location did not reveal, the rents were abnormally low, that location was walking undeniably undervalued with the various luxury condominiums being built in areas recently acquired by the municipality, therefore that old condominium now happily encompassed the former rich and heirs of decadent fortunes, as well as two single and foreign girls; even more than three years later, she still found it difficult to adapt.

  
The neighbors' indifference, however, no longer bothered her, now it was even good that people kept some distance from her, if not for the obvious reasons, than because of the old custom. Unlike Rey, who had just become a sedentary shadow in recent times, Rose was super willing and athletic, even though her short stature did not denounce it right away, she was a gym teacher in elementary school, as well as a professional player on a Lacrosse team. 

  
She poked the food before actually starting to put it in her mouth, it tasted better than it looked, but she didn't want to give Tico that little taste, being herself the one who always complained about the previous day's meat sandwiches that Rey made.

  
“I think i’ll be warming up the car, the dishes we can leave for the Rose and the Rey of the future to deal with.”, She hurriedly got up while putting the juice down her throat. “Five minutes for you to brush your teeth and change, I’ll be taking your things downstairs already.”, Like a pink rocket the woman removed the plate in front of her, and with a minimum of complaints from Rey’s part, made clear the true stock of water and cereal bars that was in her vehicle. Obviously, the owner of the house still put everything inside the dishwasher before going to the bedroom.  
Rey came out of the bathroom with a towel on, she didn’t plan on taking a shower this early, but she knew all the heat that would pass until the end of the trip, since Rose’s car was having ventilation problems. The wardrobe seemed totally empty when she opened it, even though all her clothes were inside, she hadn’t rearranged anything after Ezra’s pieces were gone, and for the time being she would have preferred it to stay that way. She smoothed an old red chilly shirt that belonged to him, the one she had made sure to leave out when the boxes formed in the small lobby and his things were gone from her life, just like himself, as if it never had existed.

  
She found herself staring at a scarlet thread loosely in the middle of the outfit. A horn sounded in the midst of the morning silence and she hurried on before the madwoman decided to go upstairs to put her clothes on for her, hastily turned off the washer before picking up her bag, with money and documents, from the couch.  
  
The old, but retreaded blue Ford that Rose insisted on driving like crazy through the city streets, stopped in an unoccupied spot in the almost empty parking lot, Rey’s attention, previously turned to her hands clasped in her lap, soon went to the entrance of the clinic that she knew so much.

  
Rose pulled out a magazine at the reception and gave the old encouraging smile as she headed towards the receptionist.

  
“Hello, Rey.”, The woman with tan skin and hair dyed with blond highlights smiled at her, as always friendly.

  
“Hi, Claire, I thought that only I was scheduled for the morning.”,She said, looking around and discreetly nodding at a girl who appeared to be a few years older than herself, sitting while fiddling with her cell phone.

  
“Oh, well, it was an emergency, you know? It looks like Ani had another panic attack, this time right in the middle of the street.”, the attendant whispered the last part with false kindness, Rey just nodded and went to sit in the first vacant spot that her eyes focused on. She was still trying to study the body language of the nameless girl sitting in front, when the white door on her left opened slowly, a calm, melodic voice filling the echo of the spacious lobby.

  
“See you next week, Anakin.”, The square-eyed man with tortoiseshell rings and thin face now smiled towards her. The tall blond boy passed by all the women, with his head down, the one who certainly accompanied him rose quietly and went after him in a disaffected manner, Rose followed her with a look of sheer mania and Rey was unable to look at her again. Eyes before the door as it closes behind her. For the little she knew about the boy, for years he suffered from recurrent agorophobia crises, but had been reintegrating into the social environment for the past two, it was not as if there were no relapses on his part, however.

  
“I imagine you’re excited about the trip, you said it will soon be your relatives wedding anniversary, right?”, Snoke sat in the brown armchair a few meters from her, that just shook her chin and turned her back. Eyes to the millimetrically designed environment to be and look comforting, for her it didn’t work that much.

  
“I’m staying at my parents’ house, i think it’ll be good to be in a familiar place.”, She crossed her legs and said that, almost completely abolishing the false hopeful tone she had adopted in Rose’s presence lately, she had done it partly so as not to have to answer too many questions, especially on subjects that already exhausted her, thing that everyone already knew. Dr. Snoke would not be so easily deceived, even if what he was saying was pure nonsense, which she knew, was necessary for the psychiatrist to do his job.

  
“Now, this is good, very good especially in addition to reaffirming my decision not to give you any more drugs for now, Rey. Clomipramine has been shown to be effective for a short time, Propanolol would not be needed now, and we can combine that it caused a certain unwanted effect on you. ”, a kind smile hovered over his beard, and Rey looked down at her lap again, where she pulled the sleeves up to cover her still cold fingerstips.

  
“A-are you sure? I think I could survive a few days with Clonazepam.”, she wiggled her fingers anxiously while waiting for his answer.

  
"We agreed that you would try during these two months away, I can prescribe Diazepam for any eventuality, but more than that it would be directly interfering with your process of ..."

“Of what, healing? come on seriously, do you really think i'll be able to get rid of this room before i die? ”, although her voice was not necessarily loud, the scorn could be heard across the street.

  
"Of acceptance.", He concluded blandly and almost carelessly, before writing anything else with his platinum gray pen, the heavy glasses reclining minimally on the uneven tip of his nose. Her eyes filled with water and Rey made a point of wiping them away even before the tears could slide down her cheeks, sabotaging herself with that. She was trying to get rid of those consultations, but the more she tried to pretend to be placid, the more her emotional lack of control came to the fore, she tried to imagine Finn looking at her now and smiling, “You’re trying too hard, Rey. You need to relax or else will end up with a second hanging head in your neck".

  
She almost laughed with his figure in her head, they hadn't seen each other in months, but his friendly and familiar face was always in her memory. She looked at the window, at the big willow tree that had been planted on the same line as the office, the room was on the second floor and the leaves and branches reached the closed glasses of the window on her right, the wind ran and bounced off the plant out there, but she couldn't feel it. Snoke was still scratching something on his paper when he cleared his throat delicately to get the patient's attention again, another warm smile and she already knew, they were going to talk about Ezra now.

  
It was always like that, after the third or fourth smile Ezra always came, and how he came ... Straightening her spine and focusing on the man's nice button-down shirt, she prepared to answer everything that was necessary in that session.  
  
Less than two hours later and with a quick stop at the drugstore, the two friends were sliding down a deserted lane while Rose rummaged and hummed along with the sound of the car itself; Spice Girls, classic. Snoke would call once a week for the usual appointments, even if it didn't seem like it, she knew she would miss him, or at least miss being able to see the doctor's face while they talked about her completely fucked up head.

  
Rey just buckled up and leaned on the comfortable bench, they had left Manchester more than ten minutes ago when the countryside took over as far as the eye could see. From the metropolitan center of Greater Manchester to Lancashire County it was about fifty minutes, even adding another four hours to reach the destination, it was not such a long journey. The strong wind ruffled their hair, and Rose laughed saying that they might as well be the youngest version of Thelma and Louise now. Rey rolled her eyes mentally, albeit with humor, only if Thelma was a controlling maniac and Louise a depressed madwoman ... After half an hour of wind she finally tied her hair on top of her head, her friend's had a chanel cut with the back almost close to the nape of the neck, so the strands in her mouth and face didn't bother her as much as they did with her brown hair.

  
Despite the bad mood and the stark difference in personalities, Rey was immensely grateful to Rose, at times she felt as if all the people in the world had abandoned her except for the heated miniature that drove beside her. When little she was the moral support between the two, a year older than Rose and always the smartest child in the class, she helped her to study almost always, and they spent hours at each other's house, in fact, their friendship became really strong around thirteen to fourteen years old, when Rey lost her best friend to the distance.

  
Rose thought it best not to stop for lunch as they approached midday, but she didn't complain when she had to settle for a bag of vinegar-fried potato chips. In another situation, Rey would offer to drive the second half of the way and thus save her from tiredness, but even though she was clean of the medication for the past few days, that was definitely not a viable option.

  
They passed through the entrance to an old farm on the side of the road, there was an old telephone booth just across the road, and it was almost certain that it no longer worked, but the view of the tall undergrowth and the vines climbing up the pegs where one day there was thick and clear glass, still was a little unsettling, Rey almost immediately remembered that she would not be able to speak to the building’s janitor to put water on the plants of her apartment, Mr. Palpatine lived on the ground floor and was an extremely cranky man who did not believe in the use of any type of means of communication, Rose said that he had become a bit crazy after the second war and that was why he had become almost a declared hermit, he looked at people with disdain from the corner of his eye when they passed him and didn’t trust anyone who didn’t look him in the face when he spoke, he didn’t even receive personal letters anymore, and it was the poor postman who suffered every time he was questioned at the door of the building when he wanted to deliver the tenants’ mail and the janitor’s bills. Despite that, Palpatine did not refuse to help her after the incident on the terrace a year earlier, but it was not as if he had sympathized with her after that, probably just a little fear of the crazy woman on the third floor, they would say.

  
When they saw the countryside and the small hills along Nabu, Rey was more concerned with not falling asleep, with the low dosage of the past few weeks the nights got much longer for her, and when she slept she almost always dreamed, Dreams that were colorful and vivid, leaving her exhausted when waking up, she needed the remedies to control that limp and unwilling body she now had, her head was throbbing and her eyes were closing with fatigue more than eighty percent of the day.

  
What her good old boss, Mauhl, would define very wisely as a legitimate hangover from life.

  
They entered the small village and people stopped to watch the strange car pass by the main street, in the center there was a small square with the statue of its founder, and Darth Vader looked tall and burly in that stone monument, the words on the sign to his feet were bronze in color and even from a distance the words flashed in their eyes. It was not yet three o’clock in the afternoon and there were few people in sight at that hour, they were crossing the small and naturally narrow streets with little speed, where pretty, century-old cottages rose at every corner.

  
At the edge of the village there was one more, it was much more recent than the others and there were only four houses built on the so-called “Alliance street”; the first one that became known around the corner after Mrs. Vittelo’s flower shop was a large building, but of modest appearance, the large hedge that surrounded the land did not hide the loose chickens at the front of the garden. A baleful smile crossed their lips almost at the same time, but Rose didn’t park in front of her boyfriend’s family home first, she drove a few more meters, past the Dameron estate that rose to the left and a little further than the spacious chalet of Solo, which was right there.

  
She parked near the old white wooden fence that faced the last two houses in the village, across the street; this one where Dameron property still prevailed. Rey unhurriedly got out of the car, neither did she notice when Rose said she was going back to their luggage shortly thereafter, the girl hurried off to Finn’s house and she remained stopped halfway after crossing the paved path, and while deciding whether or not to push the small wrought-iron gate in front. It wasn’t as if after such a trip she really had a choice, it wasn’t like she resented going home, it was just bizarre, even a little sad depending on the point of view.

The gate creaked slightly when she pushed it away, and once again her memory was auspicious when she remembered to make the exact move when she came back in the afternoons from bike rides, years ago when she was just a toothy little girl, on a summer like that, with trees like those that surrounded houses like those, the same houses, the same trees of so many years ago. The front door of the house was a round arch and spaced by white rose bushes, which as a child always led her to compare that to the entrance to a mystical portal, as in the fairy and elf stories that she was read to before going to sleep, said her parents that she was born out of love and as it was explained to her, even at an early age the girl already seemed to understand when they tried to talk about her complicated adoption process in Ireland, fortunately successful at the age of six months.

  
She raised her fist to hit the wood, when a loud and visibly altered voice sounded not far away.

  
“You’re the one who insists on these things, I already said it would work and if I said it’s because it will, you stubborn thing.”, She frowned as she walked around the garden of peonies that had recently been planted on the manicured lawn .

  
“For the last time, I’m not doubting your ability to choose, Luke, I just said that this is a little too much for the occasion and it really is.”, Rey peeked through the wide backyard, beyond the old playground already long abandoned, in the tiny leisure area near the centenary apple tree that was the pride and joy of the house, the two men argued very close to each other, although she knew it was more routine than anything else, there was not even an aggressive stance in neither of them. 

  
“There you go with that same story of our trip to Majorca, I already said I didn’t see that man behind me ...”, the blond one with hair almost completely taken by gray strands said, his long beard shining with silver sparks around the daylight. Rey crossed her arms, watching them, it was almost like she have never left home.

  
“You were the one who brought it up, darling, I wasn’t even talking about the day you almost broke that poor unknown man’s teeth because of your overreactions.”, The most burly, dark-skinned and with a carefree smile said, they were both in their 50s, but he definitely looked younger, whether it was his short hair or his youthful face behind the current mask of pure sarcasm. In any case, she didn’t understand anything about the second part of that conversation, she knew that they were helping to plan the next month’s party, so the first point of the discussion was quite clear, since she knew them like the back of her hand.

  
The other opened his mouth to answer him in kind, by the movement of his lips, a beautiful ugly word was right on the trigger ... But he stopped immediately when his attention was turned to a strange point in his peripheral vision, and then he almost gave a jump of fright when he saw her, before smiling brightly and rushing towards her, pushing the other slightly to the side.

  
“Sunbeam!”, Lando turned with his shout, looking even more surprised.

  
“Hi, Dad.”, She was swallowed up in a tight, homesick hug, even though they had seen each other less than a month ago. After almost dying, it was not unusual that the two were always so amazed by her presence, it was a little stranger of course; almost like being a two years old again.

  
“I thought you wouldn’t be home until tomorrow.”, Lando approached his daughter while she was still hugging her side with the other father. She received a hug and kiss that was less effervescent than those of the first, although equally affectionate.

  
“Rose couldn’t wait to get rid of her little pests,” she said, referring to her friend’s students, who had just gone on summer break.

  
“Much better then! Now you can also go to the twins party tonight.”, She disguised a grimace when Luke spoke to her. The three entered through the kitchen door and she broke free from them as she went straight to one of the high stools in front of the wooden counter.

  
The two exchanged a look full of meanings when she did, Reys knew it and sometimes bothered her, their habit of communicating in silence about her, habit that was quite recent.

  
“I thought their birthday was in February.”, She observed Lando opening the refrigerator and pulling out a bowl of chocolate pudding. They never forgot that it was her favorite dessert.

  
“It is actually, but they’re celebrating the store opening next week, it’s going to be so much fun.”, Luke set the dishes on the table and cut three thick slices, distributing them among them.

  
“I guess.”, She pricked the sweet with her fork and brought it to her mouth, Luke barely blinked as he watched her do it.

  
“There will be music, food, beautiful people ... Well, the Dameron boy should go too, but that’s the least to worry about.”, Lando rolled his eyes at his husband’s teasing, and Rey almost laughed with the brief disapproving grimace of her father when speaking the name of the neighbors’ son, Poe Dameron had been her first flirt when she was just twelve years old, as well as her first broken heart less than a month after the “courtship” started, when he left her to be with the youngest of the Hux family, from the back street; since then, the teasing/dislike had started on Luke’s part.

  
“I appreciate the offer, guys, but I’m not a kid anymore, you don’t have to keep trying to urge me to do things.”, She dropped her fork and sighed, scratching her still watery eyes from the road dust, she was just exhausted , the newly purchased bottle in the bag would come in handy now. Lando looked blankly at her, assessing her with his eyes once again, Luke didn’t need to exchange any meaningful glances with him to know they were both thinking the same thing: every time they saw her she was thinner and more dejected.

  
“Honey, we just thought it would be good to go out to see your friends, they haven’t heard from you in a while.”, She looked up at Lando almost sarcastically, and almost bit her tongue so as not to give him a cross answer. As if no one in town knew what had happened to her. 

  
“I’m off to bed, good night for those who stay,” she said, even though it was the middle of the afternoon and even though the other two were still looking at her, unhappy and worried, as always. It didn’t take long for her footsteps to hit the wooden floor of the stairs leading from the entrance hall.

  
“This girl’s stubbornness came all by your side.”, Luke kept Rey’s pudding in the fridge while receiving an amused look from the other man.

  
“You forget that i’ve met your family before, sweetie.”, Luke looked at him with narrowed eyes.

  
“Don’t be so cynical, it doesn’t match that good samaritan face of yours.”, Lando smiled knowing that he had managed to leave him unanswered, and sat down in the place once occupied by his daughter, before eating again.

  
“Do you think we should've said that Ben is also arriving in the city today to try to provoke some other reaction in her?”, Luke thought for about two seconds before answering seriously.

  
“Maybe, you know, if we wanted to see our only daughter run barefoot to the road and never come home again.”

  
“They were just kids, for God’s sake, Luke! Rey certainly doesn’t care about that anymore.”, Luke shot him an amused look before speaking.

  
“Sometimes it seems like you don’t know her at all.”, Lando considered saying something else, but thought better of it and ended up just putting another mouthful of chocolate in his mouth, that addiction, the girl had inherited from him.  
  
As she looked around the small but well-kept room, Rey felt a tightness in her chest, a longing that she didn’t even know existed in her being when she closed the door and studied her childhood room.  
Nothing had changed there, absolutely nothing, from the white bed coverlet with yellow embroidered butterflies, to the wallpaper imitating a forest and the colorful fairies scattered across the ceiling; her old bookcase remained intact, and the window with the padded parapet full of rhinestone-patterned pillows made by her and her father Luke.

  
She threw the bag aside and took off her shoes before lying on the soft old mattress, even with the window closed she could feel the warmth of the sun hitting her legs, Rey tried to remember the last time she had been there, it had been over two years now, and she had slept in that same child’s room, that very big bed, but hadn’t done it unaccompanied that time.

  
A strange wave of chills came over her body and she thought about reaching for the floor to get the medicine, she gave up. It wasn’t like it was really going to do anything for her situation, so she just turned her body face down as she always liked to lie and thus faster than usual, managed to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has a special spot in the middle of all the ones i've written, hope you enjoy the plot and the characteres. <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl with dark curls has now turned her body completely to be able to see him and the brief suspicion that had covered him seconds before dissipated when his eyes met those of his former best friend and first love, right there.

Ben stepped on the accelerator while searching with his free hand where the annoying noise of his own phone came from. He had been on the road for almost an hour inside that rented car and yet he hadn't gotten used to his oddly heavy gear.

He had disembarked at the small airport earlier and took the opportunity to buy some of the drinks there that Finn had ordered by phone. Once on the mainland, it was not as if the urban and mountainous landscape ceased to be less beautiful, but there was a certain rural air that he had always appreciated since he was a child, when his father took him to visit his grandparents on their farm in Scotland mainly, when younger one of his secret dreams was to live in a house on the edge of a large lake, swimming, fishing and best of all... being completely alone.

Finally he managed to find the device after touching the back of the hitchhiker's seat, saw who it was, it was just Seth already asking for help in less than a day.

"Sorry, Sethy, but holidays are holidays.", He put his mobile phone in his trousers pocket and turned his attention to the road, again with both hands in the direction. He knew how the clerk hated that stupid nickname he'd given him, which was precisely why he used it.

The little vodka bottle next to him was already half empty, but he didn't play dirty in finishing it. Normally he wouldn't drink at the wheel, but in the last few months he had already done and gone through several things he had only imagined in his deepest nightmare.

He laughed alone as he looked down the road in front of him, the night was already falling and his laughter sounded lonely in that deserted part of the highway.

"Lucky son of a bitch you are, Solo." He threw the three little bottles out the window and felt as much remorse as possible for doing so on a particularly beautiful bend in the road.

The small forest that surrounded the little town where he had been raised until his early teens seemed to shine under the light of the full, silvery moon that hovered among the few thick looking clouds. Ben remembered how when he was little his father had invented that hisnbest friend and Ben's uncle of consideration, Luke, was a werewolf in disguise, and it was precisely for this reason that at each full moon he would spy on his uncle's house to see him howling at the moon through the attic window, these false rumours began when he was only 4 years old and his father had fed it day after day, laughing inside. Until on a night like that, at the age of 6, the little angel had tried to drive a stake through his uncle's chest. Aside from the fact that his husband had almost died laughing along with Mr. Solo, Mrs. Solo had become really angry and this resulted in almost a month of his father sleeping in the living room. Ben used to remember and wheeze at stupid things like that when he was alone at home or even at work, if there was one thing you couldn't say about his childhood it was that it had been boring.

Between climbing trees and hunting fireflies along the trail closest to home with the other children in the area, he once cut off Mr. Hux's ponytail with pruning shears that belonged to his mother while they were all lying around the old lake north of the town, and the afternoon ended with all the adults running after him and Rey while the two of them came out laughing and laughing with their tufts of hair in hand.

Rey. 

It had been a long time since they had met, exactly twelve years since they had actually seen each other. When he and his parents moved and she stayed behind with her Rey was no more than 13 years old, she was only three months younger than him and at that time only a little girl with brown hair and giant eyes, as well as a thick layer of freckles on her cheeks and a strong personality that bordered on petulance.

Finn had commented that the girl would be there during the summer as well, and he did not know very well what to think of that, the specter of a child still hovered in his mind when he thought of her even though he knew she was already a grown woman.

The last summer he himself had spent in Nabu the year before had been particularly strange, the uncles had travelled to stay with their daughter, as well as Finn, who had previously promised to meet him in the old village where they both grew up. His parents were also looking particularly sad, and this had left him stuck, but he preferred to keep his doubts to himself and did not meddle in anything, instead he concentrated on the company he had taken with him to get to know the place.

It was by cutting his way through a hidden but easily accessible road that he arrived at the old house. The street was noisy and the Thomas' house already seemed to be teeming with people - more than usual, in this case.  
Taking the luggage out of the boot he felt an itch on the back of his head as if he were being watched, as he turned to the entrance full of millimetrically pruned bushes that adorned the garden in front of the house, he came across what he least wanted to see now.

Leia was at the threshold, arms crossed and face frowned.

"Great, starting this very smoothly," he sighed to himself as he closed the car and locked the doors. The woman with identical hair and eyes to his did not move a muscle while watching her only son push the gate of the house.

"I can't believe you came driving at such a time when I told you clearly not to, Ben Solo.”, he walked with his heavy bags until he faced her.

"It's not even nine o'clock yet, mum. Come on.”, he said, as her trained and clever eyes evaluated him from top to bottom.

"I hope your day has been good, my love. Your father and I were looking forward to seeing you.", she relieved the harsh expression that she very seldom displayed to her son and smiled at him genuinely happy now. He did not complain, his mother was a sweet person and although they did not see much, it always seemed that no more than a day had passed when they began to talk.

"Sorry i'm late, I picked up a lot of traffic here.”, he responded by hugging and bending slightly to her height. 

"And some other things, I see. Or rather, feel it.", her repressive voice came back when the smell of alcohol denounced it.

"Okay, let's go inside before you unload all that fury of yours on me, mother.", he encouraged her to enter through the door while balancing a bag close to his shoulders and an even heavier one at knee height.

"If it isn't the foreigner in the family right here in front of us.”, Han Solo went downstairs and smiled from ear to ear as he saw his youngest version crossing the entrance hall. The son just smiled back in a more restrained way, the two hugged each other.

Han also spoke to him face to face, but did not need to feel his breath to know that he was slightly drunk. He exchanged a quick glance with his wife, but she moved quickly inside the house before they could communicate properly.

Ben hurried to his room, dropped his luggage at the foot of the bed and did not take long to look at the blue walls or the carefully stacked comic books on a shelf beside the bed. The bath was as quick as possible and as he wiped himself with one of the cream-coloured towels his mother loved to buy he watched the tiles with rocket designs and stars going around the bathroom, that and the comics were probably the only things left of his childhood there after they temporarily moved in with Mr. Kenobi, his mother's uncle who was seriously ill at the time, Bem had taken with him all the things he could remember to his new home and when about four years later the elder succumbed to his illness on a hospital bed his parents returned to their home country, but he did not, instead decided to stay and go to college there too, when he came of age he was responsible for the business left by his great-uncle.

He looked for some clothes to wear and after putting on his glasses again took the bag of drinks. He left his mobile phone on top of the dresser and looked around to see if he was forgetting something.

  
She took a long sip before cutting another carrot and pushed the bottle of wine away from the counter, before pouring the chopped vegetables into the smoking pot next to her.

Han watched her quietly and beside the doorway, he knew very well how that woman's anger worked after more than thirty years together.

Still not saying anything to her, he took a particularly red tomato and a smaller knife than she was using to help her prepare dinner. Leia cast an almost accusatory glance at him when she realized that he was spying on her over the rims of his glasses.

"You don't have to pretend you're not angry, you know?", she turned her eyes to his sneaky little way she knew very well.

"Don't start with that now, Han. You know that if we let it go, it's only going to get worse and worse.", they weren't just talking about the alcohol now.

"I know that, but neither can we simply want him to just wake up one morning and all the rage is gone, it wouldn't be fair to him, Leia.", she no longer replied, but just glanced over her shoulder. The light hair now replaced largely by thick silver locks and the expression wrinkles strongly marking the sides of his eyes. Even after so long it was still strange to think that she had married that same boy she used to fight with so much during school. The leader of the little group of bad boys, Han-mischief-Solo.

Even though her son was Han's clone she knew very well where all that stubbornness came from, that insistent mania to keep the problems to himself and to protect from everyone around him.

"God, I just wish that boy wasn't so much like me.", she lamented before filling another cup for herself. Han just sighed before taking the knife from her hands and offering to finish that task, that was definitely not the best of times for the Solo clan.

  
When lefting home he found his parents talking in the kitchen, there was a bottle of a soft dry one on the counter and they laughed softly between one murmur and another. A strange sensation pervaded his body, a restlessness not uncommon in recent months, it was not anger itself, or at least not only it, it was a strange feeling, strong as a mixture of sadness and non-conformity.

The Thomas' garden was crowded with so many people. Some familiar faces would appear again and again as he turned around to enter through the back door, there the flow of people was less and the music was lower too. He didn't even see Mr. or Mrs. Thomas's shadow anywhere, he barely had time to put the bottles on the sink before a colored ray jumped on him. Bamboozling back Ben automatically grabbed the body that collided with his.

"Rosie.", she let him go momentarily to give him a cracked kiss on the cheek, Ben allowed himself to let out a little smile with the gesture of affection, Rose was like a little sister to him.

"Where have you been, you brainless brat?! I thought you wouldn’t come!", as always, her effusive way seemed to fill the whole room. 

"It hadn't been that long.", she had gone to visit him with Finn a few months ago.

He felt a chill in his stomach thinking about what she might ask next. Rose hadn't seen him since when the two had spoken five months earlier, he and Kaydel were still together.

"So how is everyone there? I'd love to come back sometime.", behind her kind smile he knew the girl knew about his situation, there in his hometown outside his parents only one person had been informed properly, Ben was not angry that his friend had told his girlfriend, he had given him permission to do so himself. All so that he wouldn't have to talk about it with anyone else.

"Have you eaten anything?", he began to say that she didn't have to bother, but before even finishing the sentence the girl had already left his field of vision, he still heard some of her grumblings about Finn having left all the food in the living room.

He went behind her after seeing a particularly lively couple going hand in hand, the living room was wide and the sofas were on either side of the room to make room for the people. He sighted a few more in the distance talking to their host.

Without wanting to interrupt his friend, he saw that Rose had stopped near a table full of food and drinks and was apparently choosing a slice for him and one for herself, given the amount of paper plates in her hands. He approached slowly and picked up a blue plastic cup in the middle of so many others stacked on the table.

There was a bottle of whiskey in half, as well as a strange, reddish mixture with a few slices of lemon inside, he poured some into the glass to mix with the first one, and it wasn't that bad.

He grimaced after taking all the drink in one sip. Rose approached him with the pizza and Ben smiled in gratitude, but noticed her empty hands before rushing out to talk to Kate and Tyler on the other side of the room.

Solo was not hungry, so he just put the food down on the big table while filling another glass. He looked around the room once more and noticed a girl on her back he didn’t know, she was talking to someone, but he didn’t stop to notice the other person either. Something about her caught his attention, her hair was long and followed slightly wavy, the chocolate colour made him stop to admire them for a moment. The woman turned on her side at once and still with his eyes low he could see the pizza dish untouched in her hands, with this movement he could also see the second person, Lya Kenata, her mother owned an exoteric shop at the end of the main street.

Lya apparently recognized him immediately, she also seemed to say something to the other one, most probably his name, the girl with dark curls has now turned her body completely to be able to see him and the brief suspicion that had covered him seconds before dissipated when his eyes met those of his former best friend and first love, right there.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments? Kudos?
> 
> See ya!


End file.
